


Pines

by rose_griffes



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Injury Recovery, entirely made up medical stuff, medical trauma offscreen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21920131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rose_griffes/pseuds/rose_griffes
Summary: a hospital stay after a mission misstep
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin & Napoleon Solo & Gaby Teller, Illya Kuryakin/Gaby Teller
Comments: 26
Kudos: 86
Collections: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Winter Holiday Gift Exchange 2019





	1. Nowhere Else but Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SydneyMo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SydneyMo/gifts).



**Turku, Finland**  
Her fingers feel cold; Gaby unclenches one hand, then the other, carefully maintaining direction and speed. How would a distraught American housewife visiting Finland drive the car while her businessman husband bleeds in the back seat? The thought almost brings a burble of hysterical laughter to the surface; she holds it down and instead asks, “How is he?”

“The same,” is Illya’s terse reply. 

Gaby won't look in the rear-view mirror at them. It doesn't help. Ahead, the road curves; pine trees wave as the car's headlights streak past them. A moment later Solo says, “Fuck, that hurts.” No quip, no sarcasm, and Gaby grips the wheel too tightly again. _Almost there_ , she thinks. She’s ready to go directly to the hospital entrance, but Illya directs her to pull over a block away. 

Illya gingerly angles Solo in the back seat, settling him in a safe position for the last block she has to drive. Then Gaby feels a small tug on her scalp: Illya has tugged off the black beanie she was wearing. “Not good for your cover,” he tells her, his breath warm on her cheek. They both look at his hands after she takes it from him. Red, too much red. Illya backs away, opens his car door and says, “I will come later.” 

Gaby nods, putting the car back in gear and preparing herself for the role she has to play. Get to the hospital. Get Solo fixed. _Please let him be okay._

* * *

They’ve made it through check-in, through the visits from experts, through the IV placement and exams and eventual stitches. It was a blur of incomprehensible language until they finally brought in a translator. Now Gaby is waiting in the room with Solo. He’s asleep; the wrinkle in his brow disappeared not long after that first dose of painkillers, and sedatives keep him still and quiet. 

Too still, too quiet. Gaby sits in the chair next to his bed, trying to decide how best to keep on the mask of a shallow American housewife whose businessman husband was foolish enough to get knifed in a mugging incident. It had been easy enough to play that housewife when she was wearing fancy clothes and jewelry; harder now that her fingernails still have traces of Solo’s blood underneath.

Her clothes don't match her role and her hands won't stop trembling. Solo's breathing is too quiet, and the machines are too noisy. The hospital orderlies don't pay attention to her, but she doesn't know who might notice something out of place, something that gives away who they really are.

Gaby takes a deep breath. Listens to Solo breathing. Pulls her hands in close to her chest, forcing her fingers to stay still.

* * *

She hates hospitals. This one is quiet and calm on its second floor. Staff members walk past their room quickly, talking in the musical Finnish that still sounds slightly unreal to her.

Visiting Finland would have been unimaginable last year. And now here she is, doing something she never expected to do, pretending to be someone she is not. Worried about a man she didn't know a few months ago. 

It catches her off-guard when she finally hears the quiet tapping at the window, even though she was waiting for it. After checking to make sure that no one is looking, she opens the window to let Illya in. He checks on her--an inventory she knows well, his quick glance of confirmation of her well-being--and then looks at Solo, mouth drawn in a straight line of worry.

"He's going to be okay," she tells him, suddenly feeling short of breath and dizzy. "They said he's going to be alright, at least that's what the woman said who was translating."

Illya nods; Gaby breathes in slowly and blinks a few times. She won't cry now, she tells herself. It's the relief of saying it to someone else who knows Solo, who cares about him. He'll be okay, even though they're stranded in a Finnish hospital, stuck role-playing for an audience that doesn't speak the same language. 

Illya must have been thinking something along the same lines. "I can't stay long, but I brought you this." He pulls a small collection of items from his pocket: a comb, a tube of lipstick, the gold earrings that her character usually wore. Also, the engagement ring with its large diamond, and her wedding band. They left them behind when they broke into the lab. Gaby takes them; her fingers tremble, but only a little.

"Now you can be married. Again." 

"It's becoming a habit," she says, keeping her tone light. He holds her hands a moment longer than he should; her short nails still have coral nail polish, but that can't hide the traces of blood on her cuticles. Illya's fingertips feel cool against her palms.

"Why don't you go wash your hands again?" he suggests, his voice a soft, low rumble. "You'll feel better." 

She would argue, but right now she can't muster the energy. He's right, so she does.

When she comes back, he's waiting by the window; Gaby closes it again and sits in the chair next to Solo's bed.

She refuses to think about how the rings feel different on her hand now that Illya has handed them to her.

* * *

Gaby sighs, not for the first time today. "You're in a hospital," she says. 

"In Finland!" Solo says and beams at her. For a man whose smiles are usually some type of performance, the directness of this particular smile is disconcerting. 

"That's right, _honey_ ," she tells him. "It's a teaching hospital. They're trying a new painkiller on you, and it's making you loopy."

Solo snorts. "Loopy. Hah." 

"And forgetful. This is the third time I've told you this." 

His expression turns serious for a moment. "Oh. Am I--are we--"

"Fortunately, you had finished your business dealings here before the mugging and stabbing." She gives him a meaningful look as she says it. Not that it will matter in ten more minutes, Gaby thinks. 

"I was mugged," he repeats and pats himself from chest toward abdomen.

"And stabbed." 

"Ouch," he says as he runs his fingers along the edge of the bandages covering his stomach. 

Gaby holds in a sigh. "Don't mess it up," she tells him. "You have a lot of stitches under there." 

"Wow," he says, still poking at the bandages. "Rude." 

"What?"

"I got stabbed!" He waves his arm--the one not currently connected to an IV--over his midsection. "That is _not nice._ "

She would laugh, but she's already heard a couple of other variations of this same stream of thought from Solo. "You're right, sweetie. It really isn't nice." 

"Oh!" he says. "That's right." Waggling his eyebrows at her, Solo says, "We're married this time around!" 

"Something you should remember better when the nurses come in the room," Gaby tells him. It's not the conversation blowing their cover that concerns her for the moment; the staff doesn't know enough English for Solo's drug-induced giddiness to make a difference. It's that he's _looking_ \--a polite sort of leer that elicits a lot of giggles and then short bursts of animated conversation in Finnish. Gaby finds herself having a reluctant sympathy for Illya's protracted sulk after she had flirted with Alexander Vinciguerra. _For the purposes of the mission_ , she's Solo's money-grubbing wife. Her would-be husband attempting to flirt with Finnish medical personnel wasn't part of the plan.

Of course, neither was getting stabbed. And it's hard to hold a grudge against Solo for that. 

* * *

Solo falls asleep thirty minutes after her explanation about where they are and what has happened. Gaby braces herself for the possibility of explaining everything a fourth time after he wakes again. 

As she stares out the window, her reflection is partly hidden by the dark pines that edge the hospital grounds. Gaby braces her hands on the windowsill and leans her forehead against the cool glass. The diamond engagement ring on her left hand sparkles, even with the gray skies outside. 

Gray skies... a gray pearl encircled by small diamonds on her left hand...

She shouldn't be thinking about this. After that first mission, Illya had pulled away. He wasn't going to do anything about whatever he might have felt. Whatever she might have felt in return. He changed his mind, and that was all.

Still. Sometimes he looks at her and her heart stutters and she wants to be someone else; someone who would act without thought for consequences later.

None of that matters, anyway. They'll be leaving Turku soon enough, and Solo will get better, and then onward to the next mission.


	2. Clouds in Layers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turku does have a university hospital--the second-oldest hospital in the Nordic countries. It serves the population of southwestern Finland. 
> 
> In the 1970s Finnish education reform included a compulsory foreign language component; the 1990s saw an uprise in pop culture influence from America. Many Finns now speak English. All of that was still in the future when this fic takes place. 
> 
> (Let's not discuss how my medical research consisted of me shrugging my shoulders and just writing what I wanted to write.)

_I'm going to kill him_ , thinks Gaby as Solo continues his poetry recitation. Shakespeare again, if she's not mistaken.

They can't leave yet. Solo's condition is still too fragile after the amount of blood he lost, and the winter storm that's whipping the pine trees now is making it difficult to arrange sea transportation, even though they're only a few miles inland from the coast. Simply put, they're stuck here. It's both better and worse than she would have guessed. Their trio's usual show doesn't work, but it's not needed: no one at the hospital cares if she's a gold-digging wife or if her husband is here on business or espionage. Gaby and Solo are just two people who don't speak the local language.

She won't think about how much she misses having Illya with her. He doesn't fit into the public part of this scenario. Instead, she watches over Solo in the daytime, and Illya surveils the hospital overnight. He's working to establish their eventual departure, and sleeping, while she deals with Solo's sudden poetic onslaught. Her only contact with Illya is through short phone calls to her hotel room. 

" _Only weak hope, my pining carcass feedeth._ " Solo quotes. 

"You're getting plenty of nutrition through the IV," Gaby tells him. The translator explained to her--to both of them, but Solo keeps forgetting--that they wouldn't give him solid foods for at least two more days. 

" _But burst, poor heart! Thou hast no better hope,  
Since all thy senses have no further scope._"

Solo looks at her after he finishes, a hopeful grin crossing his face. "You're not getting any food yet, remember?" she says. 

He frowns. "The sonnet!" he corrects her. "Do you know which one it is?" 

She has learned that a sonnet is a poetry form that Shakespeare used. "No. I didn't study Shakespeare in school." When she was a teenager, some of their mandatory Russian lessons included poetry recitation, but Gaby doesn't remember any of them. 

"That one wasn't Shakespeare," he tells her, looking disappointed. Gaby shrugs, and he tsks. "It was William Smith." 

He doesn't say anything for a moment and Gaby thinks that he's fallen back asleep again, but after a moment he rallies. " _Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing._ It's perfect for you and Peril." 

_Scheiße._ She worries about what he'll say next. His loosened mood and flow of words have included comments about her and Illya. Things that she doesn't want to think about. Except that she can't stop wondering if Solo is right.

She doesn't find out how the rest of that poem goes or what Solo would have said after that because he finally does fall asleep again.

* * *

Gaby isn't surprised when a police officer shows up, accompanied by the same interpreter who had helped the day before. Illya and Gaby discussed this already; Turku isn't a small town, but someone getting stabbed in a mugging is still note-worthy. 

It's her turn to take point on this. She just hopes Solo is aware enough to follow her lead. If he starts to say the wrong thing, Gaby will interrupt and say that he needs his rest. It doesn't go too badly; Gaby gives their rehearsed story about a city tour gone bad, with a mugger getting angry when they didn't have enough cash to satisfy him. Solo nods and looks somber until he starts quoting something about sheep. More Shakespeare, she thinks. 

"My husband is very susceptible to the pain medication," she tells the interpreter. "I'm afraid he won't be able to add much detail until later."

The woman nods and after the police officer scribbles a few more notes on his pad of paper, they leave. Just Gaby and her wordy would-be husband who apparently wants to set her up with the third member of their trio.

* * *

Illya manages to sneak in before she leaves for the evening; he's wearing a simple outfit to pass as part of the hospital cleaning crew. "How is he?" asks Illya. His cheeks and nose are pink from the cold air and his hair is tousled. 

" _Blow, blow, thou winter wind,_ " Solo chimes in. After napping most of the afternoon, he's wide awake, and back to quoting poetry. 

"What is he doing?" Illya asks her. 

"Apparently the pain medication makes him poetic," she tells him. "He's been quoting Shakespeare." Gaby glances at Solo, who gives them both a cheery slanted grin. "And flirting with the nurses, even though they don't understand what he's saying." _And offering unwanted advice_ , she thinks but holds her tongue. 

" _Thou art not so unkind as man’s ingratitude_ ," Solo continues. "But I don't remember the next line. Something about winter's rude breath."

Illya frowns. "This is--"

"It's fine," Gaby interrupts. "He didn't say anything to wreck our cover when the interpreter was here. The doctors and nurses don't really talk to us. There's nothing to be done other than wait it out."

" _Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly._ Except that some people clearly need more folly in their lives." 

It takes a moment for the potential meaning to sink in, but then the tips of Illya's ears turn red. "What are you talking about, Cowboy?" 

She expects another quote from Shakespeare; instead Solo says, "It's so tiresome," drawing out the o sound in _so_. 

She tries to give Illya a look of warning--do **not** ask him to clarify. But it's too late. "What do you mean?" asks Illya. 

"This dance of yours. The will you-won't you." 

Gaby grabs her coat. "I'm going back to the hotel." 

"Leaving so soon?" Solo asks her. " _Love runs away from those chasing her_." 

"Goodnight, _sweetheart_ ," Gaby tells him. She allows herself a quick glance at Illya. "Be careful. Stay warm." 

He nods once. She knows he'll spend most of the night outside, keeping Solo safe. 

" _For some must watch, while some must sleep_ ," Gaby hears as she walks out of the hospital room.

* * *

Gaby curls around a pillow and stares at the ceiling of her hotel room. What was the poem Solo had quoted this morning? Something about counting the clock, but what stays with her is the idea that there is no defense against Time. 

She knows engines and she's learning electronics. She can hot-wire a car and pretend to be a secretary or wife or stewardess. Some things Gaby can't fix... but maybe she's been too scared of breaking something. Maybe she can take something and not have it fall into pieces.


	3. The Sky's Globe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A belated finale for this story! I hope it's worth the wait; thanks to all who have read and commented so far.
> 
> Forgot to mention! Chapter titles are from some (translated) poetry by Finnish-Swedish poet Henrika Ringbom. 
> 
> Also! I selected Finland as a destination for our team because of its precarious positions during the Cold War. Bordering Russia, Finland's leaders were adept at appeasing the political demands of the Soviet Union while still maintaining its sovereignty. The term Finlandization stems from that time period.

The sonnets fade as Solo’s condition improves and the medication is reduced. Illya finds a safe exit route for their trio, and Waverly ensures that medical personnel will accompany them. 

They leave Finland. Thin webs of clouds slip past, bringing the salt smell of the ocean to tangle with the scent of pine. Someday maybe she’ll see this country again--without the fear and bloodshed. For now, the country itself remains on the edge of a knife, balancing the demands of a Soviet regime that she knows too well. 

Her own internal balance still feels off-kilter: too many thoughts close to the surface that she was repressing before Solo and his poetry quotes.

Illya sits next to Solo on the small freighter they’ve temporarily acquired. It’s his turn to put up with an awake and injured Solo, Gaby decides, and bullies her way into the engine room to investigate how it operates. It could be useful someday; that’s her excuse for avoiding her teammates during their trip back to the U.K.

* * *

Waverly breaks up their trio temporarily; Solo stays in London to recuperate while Illya goes to Austria. Gaby travels to New York City and glories in her short visit: it’s her second time there, but her first time alone, with no stupidly handsome tall men to demand her attention. No role to play either; Waverly’s errand requires a person, but not a spy. It’s busy work until their team reunites. 

The time alone allows her thoughts to spiral: a never-ending loop of want and worry, of choice and consequence. She has a drink at the hotel bar and then goes out to buy a bottle instead, but the loop continues.

After waking up with a hangover, Gaby puts on her darkest pair of sunglasses and walks down Fifth Avenue to the main branch of the New York public library. She asks one librarian her questions but ends up with a team of three librarians arguing about literature. It would amuse her more if her head weren’t pounding. Eventually, after much discussion, Gaby has three books to take to the Reading Room and leaf through. She writes a few phrases on a notepad, pronouncing the sounds in her mind as she copies the Cyrillic letters.

* * *

Solo is too thin, she thinks. He agrees and laments the fit of his tailored suits. But his face has color again, and his smiles have their smooth polished again. Illya joins their reunion and says, “Cowboy. You need some good Russian food,” which is his admission to missing him. 

Gaby exchanges a glance with Illya; their greetings remain unspoken because Waverly is anxious to talk about their next mission as a team. “No rest for the wicked, I’m afraid,” he tells them. She assumes he’s quoting something--maybe Shakespeare--but she doesn’t ask.

Their destination is an upscale resort town in Argentina; Gaby listens while Waverly explains the mission at too much length. She could have summarized it in nine words. _Solo: entrepreneur. Gaby: socialite. Illya: bodyguard. Find mad scientist._

* * *

It was, in most ways, the opposite of their time in Finland. She played an independently wealthy--and single--high-class woman rather than a _Goldgräberin_. Warmth and sand instead of winter and strife. Solo was, to his joy, solo. The job was slow and subtle maneuvering rather than a quick shift to dark clothes and a fast break-in. (A break-in with a casualty that still haunts her. Solo, for all his care-free attitude, was cautious in his movements and always wore a shirt, even at the beach.)

And yet here are pine trees and the Atlantic Ocean again in Cariló, much like in Turku.

Waverly gives them thirty-six hours to enjoy the resort after finishing the case. She would have demanded more time; Illya deemed it excessive, and Solo has already abandoned them to do… well, she can guess what, but the question is with whom.

Which leaves her with Illya. With her spiral of thoughts, and with a tentative resolution. She rehearses the words one last time in her hotel room and then goes to find him.

“Come for a walk,” Gaby demands. He’s reading a book, lurking in the shade of a pine tree near the beach. He closes the book and stands up without any comment. They head down a path inland. Overhead, birds wheel and turn, cackling at the invasion of their space. Gaby shivers in the shade for a moment before Illya silently unbuttons his long-sleeved shirt and hands it to her. He’s still wearing a plain tee-shirt; she takes his offering and pulls it on, waving her sleeve-covered hands around in a moment of amusement at the extra fabric. 

Illya smiles at her antics and she remembers all of the reasons why she wants this: his soft close-mouthed smile, the way he moves to let her fill their shared space, the comforting hand on her shoulder. 

She blurts out the words faster than she’d intended. “YA pomnyu chudnoye mgnoven'ye: Peredo mnoy yavilas' ty.” 

Illya stops, his face blank. Gaby hesitates a moment before continuing. “Kak mimoletnoye viden'ye, Kak geniy chistoy krasoty.” She moves closer, into that bubble that defines _his_ space rather than _theirs_ , and recites the next verse. 

Her fingertips tingle, a cold numbness that distracts her until Illya grabs her hands, the sudden movement startling Gaby. “What does this mean?” her asks; his large fingers tremble around hers. 

Gaby takes a deep breath. “A woman recites Pushkin’s most romantic poem to you, and you don’t know what it means?” Her heart thumps in her chest as she waits for his reaction.

He tightens his grip and pulls her closer, closer and she’s looking up into his blue, blue eyes. “I serdtse b'yetsya v upoyen'ye, I dlya nego voskresli vnov',” she whispers. Gaby lets go of his hands and moves her hands up, across his biceps, letting the cuffs from his borrowed shirt slide down past her wrists.

She twines her fingers around the back of his neck; he bends down and Gaby forgets the last two lines she was going to recite because his lips warm hers and his hands curve across the small of her back. 

Illya stops kissing her; Gaby whimpers in protest. “I bozhestvo, i vdokhnoven'ye, I zhizn', i slezy, i lyubov',” he says: the final lines in the verse. Gaby nods. He lowers his head again, but instead of kissing her, he leans his forehead against hers. “You learn this for me?” he asks.

“Yes,” she answers. Illya breathes in deeply, but instead of talking, he slides his hands down, from the small of her back to under the curve of her ass, and then he picks Gaby up. She lets out a surprised yelp and he laughs, a soft _hah_. 

Gaby decides he has a smart plan; she wraps her legs around his back, clinging to his shoulders with her hands. He’s still smiling as he kisses her again; she thinks her expression probably mirrors his, and it’s a good ache of relief and fulfillment inside her chest. Spilling the words she’s been rehearsing for days, having his enthusiastic reaction: she’s glad that her eyes are closed as they continue kissing because she can feel the tears well up behind her eyelids. 

They bump noses and shift positions; Gaby inhales and the fragrance of pine mingles with Illya’s warm scent. He’s making a sound in the back of his throat, a broken hum; Gaby chases the sound of it, sliding her tongue past his teeth. His hands tighten under her ass and she rocks slightly in his grasp, reveling in the taut muscles of his body.

Breaking off their kiss, Illya suddenly starts walking back down the path. “What are you doing?” she asks. She can’t see where they’re going. 

“Back to hotel,” he says, not slowing his pace. 

“Good plan." A moment later she asks, "Are you going to carry me all the way there?"

"Da." Illya doesn't slow his pace.

Gaby smiles and tilts her head upward to feel the warmth of the sun trickling through the pine branches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In 1917 an Argentinian family started planting pines and other trees to see if they could stabilize their ocean-front sand dunes. Now there's a small forest next to the coast of Cariló, as well as some very exclusive resorts. Pinamar, just up the coast, took that same idea. 
> 
> In case my silly idea wasn't obvious: I liked the title of Pines because it's both descriptive of location and a verb for Gaby and Illya. 
> 
> After getting ~~romantic~~ literary advice from librarians, Gaby quoted the first, second, and final verses of Alexander Pushkin's poem "To ***". It is indeed widely considered one of the most romantic Russian-language poems. 
> 
> [Here's one translation that I like](https://www.rbth.com/arts/330790-most-popular-russian-poems) (scroll down a bit, it's number two on their list).  
> [Here's another translation (that I like less) and the original Cyrillic text.](https://linguafennica.wordpress.com/2016/03/05/to-k-alexander-pushkin/)


End file.
